VIDEO: Jonah finds signs of spring

Monday

Mar 24, 2014 at 11:07 AMMar 24, 2014 at 8:12 PM

With yet another snowstorm coming early Wednesday, this video follows in the footsteps of Jonah Gray Sunday as the three-year-old and his Dad join a Quincy Park Dept. Environmental Treasures walk in the Blue Hills. Jonah and about 20 others find signs of spring with Sally Owen.

Sue Scheible The Patriot Ledger @sues_ledger

With yet another snowstorm coming early Wednesday, lets follow in the footsteps of Jonah Gray Sunday as the three-year-old and his Dad, Steven Gray, joined a Quincy Park Dept. Environmental Treasures walk in the Blue Hills. The Grays and about 20 others found signs of spring with Sally Owen.

The Grays just moved to Quincy recently and experienced a winter unlike any other. "We are new transplants to New England and very ready for spring," Steven Gray said Sunday.

Gray is a professor at UMass-Boston and teaches courses in marine ecology. He previously was at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He grew up in Texas.

Jonah, three and a half years old, took right to Sally Owen, who has been leading the monthly walks, with nature or historical themes, for 14 years.

Along the way, over an hour, the group of some 20 people discovered skunk cabbage, pussy willows, red osier dogwood, a vernal pool, and water bubbling through a stream.

"Spring is really here," Owen said, even though snow is coming is coming Tuesday night.

Owen gave a lively commentary. "Skunk cabbage is a really really cool flower," she said, because it has a hood, making it warmer inside, and insects can go inside and warm up by 10 degrees or so. "Kind of like a little warming hut," she said.

It got its name because it smells like skunk but is gets very large and beautiful.

The group walked along trails, shared with joggers, and beside ponds. They also found some pussy willows, which Jonah pronounced "soft and smooth!" Owen also talked about the protective effects of the pussy willow structure.

Owen stopped to point out the red osier dogwood, which has a red pigment that turns bright red in the sun.

They also lingered by a running brook to listen to the water. The brook is dry in other times of the year. Then they stopped to nibble on some black birch branches, which "tastes like wintergreen," Owen said. The adventuresome joined in and agreed, the bark was tasty.